Similar stories

Warning: Reading this column may have the same effect it had on the woman writing it. (I must have a Popsicle or Good Humor right now!)

It wasn’t always as easy as screaming (and going to the freezer, or deli). These things had to be invented, and I think we owe those stone-cold geniuses a salute.

The Popsicle

If it weren’t for Frank Epperson, we wouldn’t have the Popsicle. And if it weren’t for his kids, we’d be licking Epsicles, which sounds almost obscene. Here’s the story.

One night in 1905, when Frank was 11, he left a glass filled with water, Kool-Aid (or its 1905 equivalent), and the stick he was stirring them with out on his porch. This was in Oakland, the Brooklyn of San Francisco.

You know how they say it’s always beautiful weather in California? Ha. The cup of sweetened water froze solid.

Frank pulled it out by the stick and — well, I think you can tell where this is going.

He made these stick treats for his friends and, years later, he made them for his kids, too, calling them “Epsicles” — a mashup of his name plus icicles. But his kids called them Pop’s Icles, because they were made by their pop. And they convinced him to change the name.

Epperson started selling the Popsicles at Neptune Beach, Oakland’s Coney Island. So novel were they that they had to be described to the public as a “frozen lollipop,” or a “drink on a stick.”

They took off. By May of ’23, a single stand at the real Coney Island (in the real Brooklyn) sold
8,000 in a day.

That same year, Epperson got a patent on his frozen treat. But, debt pressing down, he quickly sold the patent to a guy named Joe Lowe — a decision Epperson later recognized as so epically awful that he is quoted as saying, “I haven’t been the same since.”

For his part, Lowe expanded the business and, when the Depression hit, made the brilliant move of selling a two-stick Popsicle for the same price — five cents — so two kids could (with some persuading, perhaps) break them in half and share them. In 1986, the Popsicle company finally stopped selling doubles, supposedly swayed by moms who complained they were too messy.

One has to wonder if that was truly the case, or if 50 years after the Depression someone on staff pointed out: Why are we still selling two for one?

Anyway, now Popsicle is owned by Unilever, and Epperson is buried in the same California cemetery as another food genius: Trader Vic, inventor of the Mai Tai.

The Good
Humor Bar

And what of the yin to the Popsicle’s yang: The Good Humor Bar? Well, it’s complicated — and parallel.

In 1922, an Iowa school teacher patented the Eskimo Pie, a square of vanilla ice cream enrobed in a chocolate shell (I love every word describing that pie).

At approximately the same time, in Youngstown, Ohio, Harry Burt invented a chocolate coating that also enrobed a slab of vanilla ice cream. But when his daughter said it was too messy (kids seem essential to the confection invention process), he inserted a stick. He called it the Good Humor Bar and started selling them from a fleet of 12 trucks outfitted, originally, with the bells from his son’s bobsled.

Burt applied for a patent, but the officials in D.C. demurred, concerned his invention was too similar to the Eskimo Pie. Frustrated, Burt took a bucket of Good Humor bars to D.C. and passed them around the patent office to demonstrate the difference: His had a stick. Thus satisfied (or bribed, or just plain happy), the authorities gave him his patent.

Guess what happened next? Burt sued Lowe — the guy who bought the Popsicle company — for copyright infringement. How dare Lowe sell something else frozen on a stick?

By 1925, the suit was settled out of court and the deal was basically this: Popsicle could sell ice on a stick and Good Humor could sell ice cream.

And sell they did.

By the 1950s, there were 2,000 Good Humor trucks plying the streets of suburbia. The Good Humor men (no women till 1967) were required to take a two-day class in ice cream etiquette, like, “Always tip your hat.” But by the ’70s, with gas prices, insurance, and competition (yes, I’m talking to you, Mister Softee) all going up, the company’s profits melted. Good Humor didn’t become profitable again till the ’80s, and by then, the bars were sold in stores, not streets.

Today, Good Humor is owned by Unilever, too. The bars are still delicious, but like Frank Epperson’s invention, they are no longer a mom- and (wait for it!) Popsicle business.

Reasonable discourse

Steven Rosner from Fresh Meadows says:

Whatever the nostalgia now is for the"Popsicle",I remember back in 1965 or so,as I rather common food(not considered a treat),that was kept in the refrigerator;along with the than rather terrible Meadowbrook Ice Cream. That was then the"ice cream" high schoolers,who were about ten-years older than I was,used in some their lab experiments. The real treats than were a sundae ice cream malted at a luncheonette,or a drug-store counter. And,a greater treat was then Carvel Custard in a cone or cup. Such,a treat back then was then mostly reserved for teenagers and presumeably"grown ups while the considerably inferior frozen Carvel Flying Saucers,were purchased "for those who were only little children". I felt that this was really rubbed in.

July 16, 2017, 9:32 pm

Barry Milner from Queens Gardens says:

Steven Rosner, you must have been from a very wealthy family. In 1965 in our neighborhood little children were happy to get a napkin from Carvel, as a souvenier of their parents' visit. Once a year, on my birthday, my parents would go to the local ice box center and freeze a can concentrated orange juice. Later, at my birthday party, they would unwrap the can, and toss it at we children who swarm around it an lick the sweet, cold contents. It was a different time.

July 17, 2017, 3:15 am

Sean F from Bensonhurst says:

As much as a classic two-stick Popsicle was a treat on a hot day, I always preferred a Creamsicle. To me, Creamsicles and Black & White Cookies are iconic of my childhood in Brooklyn. (Don't get me started on Fudgesicles - ick!)

July 17, 2017, 1:42 pm

Sean F from Bensonhurst says:

Beatrice,

You must have eaten your Creamsicles too slowly. Mine never even had a chance to drip.

July 19, 2017, 10:23 am

Sean F from Bensonhurst says:

No, Honey. I bite.

July 20, 2017, 10:12 am

Enter your comment below

Name:

Neighborhood:

By submitting this comment, you agree to the following terms:

You agree that you, and not BrooklynPaper.com or its affiliates, are fully responsible for the content that you post. You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening or sexually-oriented material or any material that may violate applicable law; doing so may lead to the removal of your post and to your being permanently banned from posting to the site. You grant to BrooklynPaper.com the royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual and fully sublicensable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such content in whole or in part world-wide and to incorporate it in other works in any form, media or technology now known or later developed.

First name

Last name

Your neighborhood

Email address

Daytime phone

Your letter must be signed and include all of the information requested above. (Only your name and neighborhood are published with the letter.) Letters should be as brief as possible; while they may discuss any topic of interest to our readers, priority will be given to letters that relate to stories covered by The Brooklyn Paper.

Letters will be edited at the sole discretion of the editor, may be published in whole or part in any media, and upon publication become the property of The Brooklyn Paper. The earlier in the week you send your letter, the better.